Friday, May 18, 2007

Wiscon

I will be in groovy sunny Madison next weekend for Wiscon, reading and pontificating as follows:

Making War on "War" (Politics, Race, Class, and Religion)Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Every time we are faced with a serious situation, we Americans have to make a War of it: (i.e., the Wars on Poverty, Drugs, Obesity, and Terror) despite the fact that "victory" continues to elude us. We even have to "battle" disease with "magic bullets". Why are we so taken with war as our default metaphor for action? How does that limit our problem solving approach? What might we replace it with? What metaphors have other cultures turned to? And how might we popularize a change?Laurel Winter(l.winter@earthlink.net), Wendy Alison Walker(wwalker102@rcn.com), Chris Nakashima-Brown(nakashima_brown@yahoo.com), M: Jean Mornard(robert_redfur@hotmail.com), Paul Kincaid(paul@appomattox.demon.co.uk)

Romance of the Revolution (Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing SF&F)Sunday, 1:00-2:15 p.m. Sunday, 1:00-2:15 p.m. Sunday, 1:00-2:15 p.m. In authors ranging from Heinlein to Macleod, Spinrad to Cordwainer Smith, the revolution is glorified -- sometimes a violent one, sometimes (but far more rarely) a peaceful one. How do we avoid making the same errors of glorifying violence and hero worship when coming at things from a revolutionary perspective in fiction? (Some people may not find these to be errors -- they're welcome to come discuss that POV too. ;))Lyn Paleo(paleo@igc.org), Chris Nakashima-Brown(nakashima_brown@yahoo.com), Laurie J. Marks(laurie.marks@umb.edu), M: Paul Kincaid(paul@appomattox.demon.co.uk), L. Timmel Duchamp(ltimmel@mindspring.com)